Principles of visual perception

Preamble

Thanks for taking the time to read about my views on data visualization. Data visualization is
a topic that I have always been fascinated about and is something that I continue to learn
about with each passing day. This blog provides me (and hopefully others) a forum for
discussing ideas, opinions and literature related to data visualization.

Introduction

We are all quite familiar with the English idiom “A picture is worth a thousand words”. This
refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed more effectively with an image
instead of a textual description. The deeper significance of this idiom can be appreciated if
we understand how our brains support visual processing. 70% of the sense receptors in our
bodies are dedicated to vision. How we see is closely tied to how we think.

Colin Ware, in his book “Information Visualization: Perception for Design”, explains
beautifully why we should be interested in studying about visualization:

“Because the human visual system is a pattern seeker of enormous power and subtlety. The
eye and the visual cortex of the brain form a massively parallel processor that provides the
highest-bandwidth channel into human cognitive centers. At higher levels of processing,
perception and cognition are closely related interrelated … However, the visual system has
its own rules. We can easily see patterns presented in certain ways, but if they are presented
in other ways, they become invisible… The more general point is that when data is presented
in certain ways, the patterns can be readily perceived. If we can understand how perception
works, our knowledge can be translated into rules for displaying information. Following
perception-based rules, we can present our data in such a way that the important and
informative patterns stand out. If we disobey the rules, our data will be incomprehensible or
misleading.”

Before we delve into the principles of visual perception, it is important to understand the
inner workings of the human memory and its limitations.

Human memory and its limitations

In reality, we actually see with our brains. Visual perception – the process of interpreting
what our eyes see actually takes place in our brains.  The world around us is filled with a
kaleidoscope of rich colors and images. However contrary to popular belief our eyes do not
sense everything that is visible around us. The process of visual perception goes through the
following filters:

 Focus – Only a part of what our eyes see becomes an object of focus
 Attention – Only a small part of what we focus on becomes the object of our attention
 Conscious thought – Only a small part of what we attend to is processed as conscious
thought
 Memory – A small part of what we think about is stored in our memory for future use
These built-in filters in our cognitive system ensures that we don’t get overwhelmed by what
we perceive.

The visual memory system consists of the following three components:

1. Iconic memory: This is a very brief (< 1000 ms), pre-categorical, high capacity memory
store. Pre-attentive processing – the body’s processing of sensory information at an
extraordinarily high speed that occurs before the conscious mind starts to pay attention to any
specific objects in its vicinity – happens during this stage.

Examples:

 When a person walks out of their home, the first thing that is noticed is whether it is
day or night
 Awareness that a particular set of objects are grouped together on a page without
conscious thought

2. Working memory: Unlike iconic memory which are fragile and decay rapidly, working
memories are more robust and can temporarily hold information available for processing for
many seconds (18-30 seconds). This also allows for manipulation of stored information. With
enough practice and training, information is moved from working memory to long-term
memory where it is stored more permanently for later recall.

3. Long term memory: This can be used to store informative knowledge for long periods of
time.

Of all the above 3 components, it is the impact on the working memory that determines the
effective of data visualization as well as dashboard design. The working memory has the
following important characteristics that can guide us in our quest for effective visual design:

 It is temporary
 It has limited capacity
 A part of it is dedicated to visual information

Based on extensive studies and research on the capacity of the working memory, here are a
few observations on the characteristics of the working memory that significantly impacts the
visual design process:

Observation: Only 3 or 4 chunks of visual information can be stored at a time in working

memory

Impact:

 Information that should be seen together should never be fragmented into different
dashboards
 Scrolling should not be required to view all the related information
 

Observation: The composition of a chunk depends on the nature of the object and our
familiarity with them

Impact:

 Several numbers on a dashboard are stored as separate chunks

 A chart representing the pattern formed by several numerical values is stored as a
single chunk

Pre-attentive processing vs Attentive processing

During the visual perception process, a seamless transition takes place between the pre-
attentive processing and the attentive processing. The difference between the two types of
processing can be easily explained with the following example

Scan the following list of numbers and quickly find out how many times the number zero
appears in the list.

This process took you quite some time as it required to sequentially scan the numbers. In the
absence of any pre-attentive attributes in the data that distinguished zero from the other
numbers, your built-in visual perception process transitioned from pre-attentive processing to
sequential attentive processing of the numbers in the list.

Now try the same again with the numbers listed below.

It was much easier this time, right? In this case the data display used a pre-attentive attribute
(color intensity) to make the zeroes stand out in clear contrast to the other numbers. This
ensured that the desired information (zeroes in this case) was perceived much earlier by the
reader during the pre-attentive processing stage. Unlike certain attributes like color intensity,
complex shapes like numbers are not attributes that can be perceived pre-attentively.
 

Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception

In the early 1900s, a group of researchers belonging to the Gestalt school of psychology came
up with a set of principles of visual perception that determine the way we tend to group
things together. These principles of visual perception offer valuable insights that can be
applied to the process of visual design.  Here are the six Gestalt principles:

1. The Principle of proximity

This principle states that objects or shapes that are close to one another appear to form
groups. Even if the objects are very different from each other they will appear as a group by
virtue of being close together.

2. The Principle of Similarity

This principle states that objects which share visual characteristics such as shape, size, color,
texture, value or orientation will be seen as belonging together.
In the figure above, the filled squares give us the impressions of three horizontal lines even
though all the squares are equidistant from each other.

3. The Principle of Enclosure

This principle states that when objects are enclosed by anything that forms a boundary around
them like a line or a background color the objects will be seen as belonging to one group.

In the figure above the visual enclosure around the circles makes us see the circles as
belonging to one group.

4. The Principle of Closure

This principle states that individuals tend to see open structures as closed even when they are
not. When parts of the whole picture is missing, our perception fills the visual gap.

In the figure above, we perceive a circle on the left side and a rectangle on the right side even
though there are gaps in the shapes.

5. The Principle of Continuity

The principle states that elements of objects tend to be grouped together and therefore
integrated into perceptual wholes if they are aligned within an object.
 

In the figure above, the alignment of the curved line segments makes us see this a single
curved line.

6. The Principle of Connection

This principle states that we tend to perceive connected objects as being part of the same
group.

In the figure above, the connecting lines between the pair of circles makes us see the circles
as grouped by rows even though the rows are nearer to one another vertically than
horizontally.